The present invention relates to a talking system using Internet phone server devices and a data communication line.
In recent years, Internet service systems allowing ordinary public telephone lines to use the Internet have been provided by Internet service providers (hereafter referred to as ISP) and use of the Internet by the general public has been widespread. Furthermore, mutual speech communication using the Internet called Internet phone has become possible. Hereafter, the conventional Internet phone server will be described.
First of all, a user originates a telephone call from an ordinary public telephone line to a nearby ISP access point (hereafter referred to as ISPA) by using an Internet phone device. Thus, a point to point protocol (hereafter referred to as PPP) connection is conducted.
In the ISPA, a unique address determined by a standard protocol of the Internet (hereafter referred to as TCP/IP) called an IP address is automatically assigned to each Internet phone device of the user side. The Internet phone device and the ISPA are TCP/IP-connected. This is usually called a dial up IP connection.
From an Internet phone information site existing on the Internet (for example, existing in a host of the ISP in the present description), the user then knows other users who similarly conduct dial up IP connections from Internet phone devices. The user thus arbitrarily selects another party for communication, and mutual speech communication is conducted by using the Internet.
FIG. 8 is an information content diagram of a database existing in a host of a conventional ISP system. The information contents include user IDs, passwords, billing information, and user specific information.
In the above described conventional configuration, however, the users desiring mutual communication must mutually dial up IP connections via the ISPAs beforehand. Furthermore, line use charges and ISP use charges are made during that time.
An object of the present invention is to provide a talking system using Internet phone server devices and a data communication line which eliminates the above described problems, which uses the Internet, which improves the convenience so that the user may originate a call and be connected to the terminating side at an arbitrary time, and which makes possible use at more inexpensive rates.
In order to achieve this object, a talking system according to the present invention includes telephone number acquiring means for acquiring a terminating telephone number from a calling terminal, access point acquiring means for searching a database on the basis of the acquired terminating telephone number to acquire a nearby access point of the terminating side, and calling means for conducting calling connection from the nearby access point of the terminating side to the terminating terminal.